


Living With Regret

by immortalje



Category: NCIS
Genre: M/M, One-Sided Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-22
Updated: 2007-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-13 10:40:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/823360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immortalje/pseuds/immortalje
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony regrets that he ignored Ducky's confession.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Living With Regret

**Author's Note:**

> Beta: Ash/Jack Vale  
> AN: For my lover100 challenge.  
> Prompt: 004. Regret
> 
> First posted [here at my personal livejournal](http://immortalje.livejournal.com/147829.html) and reposted [here at my community on livejournal](http://love-sacrificed.livejournal.com/24516.html)

_“Anthony, do you have anything to tell me?” Ducky said with a hopeful look that told Tony just what the older man wanted to hear and he wanted to say it. He wished he could say it, knew that it would lead to a real relationship, but that was what terrified him. He was afraid to screw it up, to hurt him. His heart told him to say yes and his head told him to take flight, to stay away before heartbreak followed._

_So he said the only thing he could say, “Should I?”_

Tony couldn’t really believe how oblivious he sounded, how dismissing even after Ducky had nearly outright told him that he loved him. And the disappointment in Ducky’s face made it worse.

Worst of all was that as soon as the words had left his mouth he couldn’t take them back. He couldn’t just go up to Ducky and apologise and confess his love, because it would mean admitting that he had lied to his face and he just couldn’t do that. Because it would mean admitting that he had willingly hurt Ducky and he couldn’t live with that. Not that it would matter, Ducky had moved on. He was now dating Gerald.

And all because he was too damn scared of a relationship that involved more than sex for a couple of nights before moving on, that involved all he had ever dreamed about but never dared to think himself worthy of. How he wished he’d had the guts to just tell Ducky that he was in love with him or just plain and simply kiss him. How he wished he hadn’t been a coward and worried about misinterpreting Ducky when it was an honest confession that merely avoided the words ‘I love you’ and he wished that he wasn’t so sure that he would have refused to allow himself happiness had Ducky said it outright.

Everyday he cursed his foolishness, his fears for making him deny his one love and every day he watched Ducky be happy with someone else. If only he could turn back time and change everything, but for now he was tortured with a broken heart that hurt every day of his life and he knew that he could only blame himself for it, because with the words “Should I?” he had shattered it himself. And nothing he could do would change things, leaving him only with regret and eternal heartache.


End file.
